


once more to see you

by carinhoso



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slice of Life, allusions to a house fire, i wrote this back in march through august when i was mourning my grandmother so it's just a big mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28408068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carinhoso/pseuds/carinhoso
Summary: In which Dejun learns that time soothes all sorrows, no matter how impossible that seems.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	once more to see you

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! i've had this sitting around in my google docs collecting dust for a couple months now, and since nct 2020 is over, i thought it would be nice to release this to mark the end of an era of sorts hehe.  
> big thanks to my friend babs for encouraging me to publish this!!  
> i hope whoever reads this enjoys it!!

_ Everything's growing in our garden _

_ You don't have to know that it's haunted _

**_-Phoebe Bridgers, Garden Song_ **

_ And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! _

**_-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince_ **

Xiao Dejun arrives in Korea a week before his classes are supposed to start.

He usually only came back in the summer, to spend some time with his father before school started but now, he had no reason to go back to China. He was tired even if it was a short flight, the feeling of leaving the biggest part of his life behind left a bitter taste in his mouth, or maybe it was the cheap coffee he bought as soon as he landed, even if he knew his hands started to shake after some caffeine. Now he stood there, shaky hands, messy hair, tired eyes, and a bittersweet sense of a home that he never truly knew, and it left him thinking that maybe he shouldn't have bought that coffee.

His father was there, beer belly and balding head, a soft smile making his chubby cheeks stand out, he looked the same as he did the year before. He felt guilty smiling back at him, as if the circumstances weren't right, but he did it anyway, it wasn't like it was his fault for being happy to see his only son. They hugged and exchanged the basic pleasantries before his father took Dejun's suitcase, babbling about how his cat — their cat now — was eager to meet her brother.

He had came back to Korea for a plethora of reasons, one of those being college. He was finally becoming a musical theater major, going the complete opposite direction as his parents, who met when they majored in chemistry. They were fine with it though, and it was more than he could ask for. Dejun remembered how Guanheng's father reacted when he became a theater major instead of going into engineering like "they" had planned for years, a mess he was glad he hadn't needed to see a replay of.

Another reason had been to run away, run away from his grief, from his regrets, from his memories. To run away from everything that had happened in the past two months or so.

—

College was fine. The classes themselves were as great as Dejun had hoped, even if half the time he didn't have it in him to try hard, his routine was tiring as it was and he didn't want to make things harder, not when he was in his own pity party, a neverending event in his head for the past few months.

His college friends were nice, but they still didn't feel the void his friends in Beijing left, like trying to put on a bikini and go tanning in the middle of the night, it didn't make sense, you should just wait for the sunlight. That's why his college friends were just that, college friends, and as much as Jungeun and Jiwoo were great girls and he genuinely liked them, they weren't his boys and they would never be. He still went out for lunch and dinner with them, and they still went shopping and helped each other out with school assignments, but the three of them knew they were just each other's lifeline, they stayed together so they wouldn't be alone.

—

Dejun barely ever saw his neighbor. He knew he was his age and lived with his older half brother that owned the cafe down the street, all thanks to his father being nosy and liking to chat with everyone. He also knew he was a musician, the only two times he saw him he was moving around in his room, the windows open to let some fresh air in after the levels of yellow dust went down, he was cleaning with only his pajamas on, putting on a couple of guitars on display, his ‘Minseok-Hyung’ nagging at him to clean properly since their mother would be visiting. He later left the room and only came back half an hour later, shirtless and with his hair wet from the shower. 

Dejun closed his curtains before his neighbor could notice him ogling and went back to studying for his scene study class, cheeks redder than they were before.

—

Dejun's room in his father's house has remained the same ever since he first visited when he was ten years old. The same pale blue, almost white, color on the walls, the same Shinee poster he got when he bought one of their first albums, the same dark purple lava lamp he got as a gift on his 10th birthday, the same cheap glow in the dark plastic stars glued to his ceiling.

On that particular night, when he's on the phone with Guanheng, he just can't take his eyes off of them.

“Hen,” he says, interrupting his friend’s monologue about his piano teacher's new boyfriend “do you think stars have feelings?”

Guanheng seems to ponder for a while, he feels grateful for him, if he asked Jungeun or Jiwoo they would have probably laughed and told him it was a silly question, but Guanheng would never do that “I never thought about that, do you think they do?”

“Not really” the answer comes as quickly as the question did, “I hope they don't… it must be so lonely since they're actually so far away from each other”

"Yeah… they must be very lonely"

“Sometimes I feel like a star” he's pretty sure he tells him that, but maybe he doesn't as he doesn't ask him why, Guanheng just goes back to his own problems instead, and Dejun's glad he does.

The stars on his ceiling seem far, too far, and he wishes his best friend was there with him, he wishes they weren't just on a phone call.

That moment, more than ever, he wishes he hadn't come to Korea, he wishes he was still with his mother, with his best friend, and with his first love.

He feels bad for hanging up when Guanheng is still talking, but he feels tired and empty and he can always apologize later.

He hangs up and lies on his side, looking outside the bedroom window, his neighbor is home for once, probably because of the unforgiving rain outside, it doesn't matter, he falls asleep and sleeps a dreamless night the same way he would any other day. It doesn't matter. 

—

Dejun wakes up and takes a grief shower, eats a grief sandwich, takes a grief bus, and attends a grief class on stage makeup. That's all he seems to do lately. He wonders if maybe he had changed something, anything, about what he did that fateful day then maybe — just  _ maybe _ — his mother would still be there with him. But there wasn't anything he could pinpoint to it, his mother was already in poor health, him deciding to sneak out to see his first love and beg for a second chance that day wouldn't have changed anything. But maybe it would… maybe if he didn't stay at home that day, if he didn't stay the whole day holed up in his bedroom crying, if he and his mom had dinner together, if they had gone out instead like she suggested and he hadn't worried her. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But he shouldn't think about it too much and he knows it, so he ignores the grief gremlin jumping around in his brain and tearing his heart apart and focuses on studying for his midterms.

—

Dejun meets his neighbor when he misses all of his alarms and misses his bus. There's a somewhat familiar and incredibly pretty boy standing in the bus stop, holding a bag of groceries for an old lady sitting right behind him and Dejun feels his throat dry up. The boy is dreamy and a few centimeters taller than him, with caramel hair and sparkly eyes and Dejun suddenly feels self-conscious about his oily hair and the pimple on his forehead, a gift from the universe to remind him to never eat that many pastries ever again. It takes him a bit too long to realize that  _ That _ pretty boy is the same one he had seen many times through his window. He hopes the bus comes soon and for once the universe hears him.

Only to laugh on his face once again when, after making sure the old lady is comfortably seated, the pretty boy sits next to him.

"You're Mr.Xiao's son, right?" the boy says with a small smile "I'm Mark, I live next door,"

"Uh," he feels his throat get a bit dry again, the self-consciousness that was once far from who he was taking over, before finally managing to smile back "I'm Dejun, nice to meet you,"

They get off on the same stop before Mark turns to the other direction and heads to the language department, bidding Dejun goodbye — no, not goodbye, a see you later… whenever that was.

Dejun feels his ears get red.

—

He calls his Xuxi after Jiwoo and Jungeun get him drunk when midterms are over, at this point many months have passed since they had to break up — After Dejun broke up with him through the phone, too scared to see Xuxi's eyes when he started hating him — and he still hasn't had the guts to talk to him. He hates it, since he was one of his best friends, so when he gets really brave and shameless and drunk, he calls him after way too many cups of whatever the hell his college friends gave him. 

He doesn't pick up.

The other morning, he's kicking his blankets when looking back at the text  _ Xuxi  _ had sent,

**_i'm sorry_ ** (08:46 AM)

heyyy

sorry I couldn't pick up I was sleeping hehe

what did u wanna say??

He answers that it was on accident and says sorry, but he asks how he's doing and sooner than later they're back to texting like they used to. It felt like they had never broken up, or maybe like they had never dated, and it made him feel good for the first time in a while, but the bubbling bitterness going through him served as a reminder of what they were, past tense, ended. Done.

—

Ever since they first talked, Mark and Dejun had grown closer than both expected. Dejun started taking the later bus somedays, (though he wouldn't admit it to himself it was to see  _ him _ , no way) and when he did so they always sat together, sharing headphones and talking about their majors and their interests. Mark was a few days older than him, he majored in French and had a minor in linguistics (to which Dejun could only reply with "oh, the language of love" which prompted a slight blush on Mark's cheeks, so faint Dejun swore he only imagined it), he was living with his older brother Minseok since their parents lived in Canada, he loved all the same artists as Dejun and also believed that rich people were not to be trusted — to which Dejun more than agreed. They had then quickly gone from bus buddies to friends, exchanging phone numbers (they ended texting up until late once and both ended up skipping class because of it… Dejun went over to Mark's and they watched a Guillermo Del Toro movie instead of worrying too much about it) and even hanging out whenever they could. Dejun felt his heart bloom like the flowers in spring. So did Mark.

—

Dejun felt like he could touch the clouds. Jiwoo and Jungeun had taken him to another college party, and he had managed to hook up with a boy with sweet eyes and a broad smile(and even broader shoulders!!!), now, on the ride back, Jiwoo had to hold him down, his body extending to outside the moving taxi, his hands just a few centimeters away from the clouds as the sun rose on the horizon.

He was drunk and his neck was starting to hurt a little since the boy Dejun had kissed was a part-time vampire, but he felt alive, and that felt really nice. Dejun probably looked silly as he sat on the stairs outside his building with a silly smile on his face — Jiwoo had gone to a convenience store to get him water and a hangover cure for later —, but he didn't care. He hadn't felt like this, this carefree, since he before left Beijing months ago.

  
  


Mark had noticed the dark purple marks on Dejun's neck, no matter how hard he tried to hide them.

"That looks like it hurts," he commented while opening a coca-cola can and sitting next to Dejun on his couch.

"A bit, but the memories are nice, at least," Dejun replied absentmindedly as he scrolled through Netflix "What about this one?"

"Fine by me," Mark said, a bit less bright than when Dejun first arrived. Dejun pretended not to notice.

—

Talking about Mark, at this moment, Dejun sat across from him in the University's library, studying for finals. They had been there for hours now, the place packed to the brim and still almost completely silent. Dejun was basically done with revising for the day, resorting to doodling little flowers on the corners of his notebook as he waited for Mark to be done so they could go home together.

That same day, when Dejun had gotten home, almost an hour after the library had closed and a minute or so after he was done consoling Mark about probably failing his exam, his heart broke. His father sat at the kitchen table, asleep in an angle that would totally give him a sore neck, with Dejun's dinner covered in front of him.

He hugged his father awake and sobbed on his shoulder, repeating sorry over and over again. Sorry for being late, sorry for being distant, sorry for not spending enough time with him, all while his father rubbed his back and told him it was okay.

They were going to be okay.

—

After finals had finally ended, he had been laying down in Jungeun's dorm room, humming the music playing on the background as his girls got ready for a night out.

"DJ, I still think you should come with us," Jiwoo said as she finished curling her hair

"I can't, I'm having dinner with my dad later," he said before going back to humming along to the Twice song the trio would listen to nonstop.

The girls shared a look, smiling while asking themselves what had changed. Dejun had once gotten super drunk and spilled all his secrets to them. How he felt guilty for his mother's death, how he felt guilty about not being able to look his father in the eye, how he thought he might have a crush on his neighbor.

They realized Dejun was going to be fine, even if not now.

—

Dejun's life was slowly turning around. He no longer saw his college friends as only a lifeline, but as close friends who he cherished dearly, he had started spending more time with his father, creating memories after years of building walls around himself, he was finally over Xuxi and, of course, he had Mark now.

They were friends, close friends, and liked to hang out almost every day, be it to study or to watch movies or to eat the food Mark had taken from his brother's cafe. They were just really good friends, right?

It was a Saturday, which meant Dejun's father was going to work all day and Dejun would spend the day holed up in Mark's apartment.

"Here," Mark hands him an orange slice, setting the plate down on the coffee table in front of them and closing the living room curtains, making the television become the only source of light in the room.

Just like most Saturdays, they shared fruit and laughed and cried together as the movie played in front of them and Dejun felt his heart swell up with joy.

Dejun was in trouble.  _ Big _ trouble.

And it was all because of Mark Lee.

Fucker, even his name sounded beautiful when it rolled out of Dejun's tongue  _ Mark Lee Mark Lee Mark Lee Mark Lee... _

After actually getting to know him instead of just admiring him through his bedroom window, he went from a handsome boy to Saturn, and Dejun became the rings orbiting around him. Dejun hated that because he never truly learned how to deal with such feelings. When he and Yukhei dated, the slightly older one was the one that completely most of the milestones in their relationship, tired of the pining they had been going through since middle school. With Mark Lee, however, Dejun had to be brave. Bold.

And so he would be.

"Mark," Dejun said as soon as the older Leo picked up the phone "Can you meet me in the convenience store near your brother's cafe? Like right now,"

"Yeah, no problem,"

—

Mark Lee was kissing him.

_ First of all, what the fuck. _

They had been — still were — squatting down on the street outside of the convenience store, the street was basically empty and the sun was still up, but golden hour was getting closer, making Mark look even more heavenly. Dejun had stalled his confession as much as he could, buying him and Mark some popsicles and trying to divert the topic whenever Mark asked him why he had called.

"I just wanted to see you," Dejun had replied after Mark asked him for the third time why he called,  _ it wasn't a lie _ .

"Oh," Mark replied, soft voice even softer than usual "Okay,"

"Yeah," Dejun looked down, his popsicle was melting, time was passing, he kept looking down, the strawberry flavored treat dripped onto the pavement "I think I'm in love with you."

They remained silent for almost a full minute, Dejun felt like the silence lasted for a century.

"Dejun, look at me," he did.

Mark dropped his own popsicle and kissed him. Dejun dropped his and held Mark's face, pulling him closer.

—

Mark Lee was unreal, Dejun had learned. The way his complexion basked in the sunlight when it hit his bedroom window during golden hour, the way his skin looked plump and rich and sweet and Dejun just wanted to swallow him whole.

There were times before when Dejun wasn't even sure he existed anymore, living only as an audience member to the shit show that everyone's lives seemed to be. Then Mark Lee came around.

Mark Lee came around like he wanted nothing more than to be his everything and touch him like no one ever did, make him feel like no one ever could and suddenly, as he felt the warmth of his fingers as they made shapes on his bare back, the simplest of actions as intimate and loving as possible. As he saw the purple marks (a mark left by Mark Lee, the most beautiful marks given to him by the most beautiful soul) on his skin and as more than happy sounds left his mouth as they intertwined fingers and locked lips.

Suddenly Mark Lee came around and loved him and Dejun was real.

Xiao Dejun was an independent man who needed no lover to validate him, but, after Mark Lee came into play — an unexpected character into Dejun's personal novel, all stubble and dark circles and the "annoying" pimple above his right eyebrow that just  _ wouldn't  _ leave, looking like Dejun's favorite poem — and he was reduced to something that loved Mark Lee, from the way the slightly older boy looked in old sweatshirts as they bleached Dejun's hair at 2 a.m, Mark's brother sleeping soundly as they muffled their giggles, each covering the other's mouth with their free hands, eyes sparkling with fondness they wouldn't have dared to admit it a month before; to the way he got oh so excited and intoxicated Dejun with his happiness, the strongest of all drugs. Xiao Dejun was reduced to something that loved Mark Lee, and he didn't mind it at all.

  
  


Mark Lee's love would forever keep Dejun hostage, — caged in his arms, fingers running down his spine as a prayer, breath warm in the back of his neck, burning his skin and marking him as his —, at all moments, Dejun was his. Early mornings, when they both had 8 a.m lectures and would go together, shoulders grazing and fingers tightly knit together as they leave Mark's apartment, as they ride the bus, as Mark laughs at Dejun's joke, the two Leo boys intoxicated with each other.

"We have no classes for today, so let's watch a movie, baby" Mark mumbled against Dejun's collarbone, and the shorter boy could just feel his smile against his skin.  _ Baby _ , he could get more than used to that.

Dejun realized that he would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> hello again!! hope this was a good experience hehe, even if it wasn't that great, writing it helped me a lot while it lasted, so i hope this little work felt as warm and fuzzy to read as it did to write it!!


End file.
